Fabric Friday - Paul Smith series six shirt

Last week on Fabric Friday I showed you the series 7b shirt from Hide.

This week I’m going a little further back to series 6 for the Paul Smith shirt first used in The Impossible Astronaut.

There was much debate as to what the true colour of the shirt was, with some seeing it as purple/violet; others seeing it as blue; some thought it was a grey colour.

Ironically in a way all of these are almost correct, as the shirt by Paul Smith was available in a number of colourways, including a grey and blueish purple colour.

It’s very difficult to scan and keep the true colour, so I have had to colour correct theres images, which I’ve done to the best I can.

It’s quite a subtle cloth. If you look real closely you can see there are woven diamond shapes in the tie spaces between the stripes, something that rarely shows up on screen.

Fabric Friday - Hide shirt

It’s Friday - so I’m back with another round of Fabric Friday.

I had forgotten I had this fabric when I was doing the original run of Fabric Fridays, so it got overlooked.

It’s about time I put things right and added to the collection.

Series 7b saw Matt Smith ’s wardrobe flourish from the relatively restrictive roster of a couple of tweed jackets, shirts and bow ties as worn at his series five debut to a plethora of shirts, bow ties and waistcoats.

Now he seemed to be wearing a new bow tie or shirt for every adventure, rarely wearing the same garment more than once.

One of the shirts that made a solo appearance was for the episode Hide.


This was the first adventure to be filmed that had Clara as the Doctor’s companion, and was the first time he wore his brand new cashmere frock coat.

The first shirt worn with it was hand-made using cloth sourced from a well known London fabric store.

The cut of the shirt was very similar to the series six shirts, with a tabbed collar.

The fabric came from McCulloch & Wallis in Dearing Street, which runs south off Oxford Street near the John Lewis department store.

Earlier this year they relocated to Poland Street on the north side of Soho, much closer to all the other fabric stores from where a lot of the cloth for Doctor Who is sourced.

It is a lightweight and very soft cotton fabric, with the design woven as opposed to printed.

Rewoven Donegal tweed - side-by-side

Last week on Fabric Friday I showed you the recently rewoven Donegal Tweed now on offer from Harrisons (the company who bought out W Bills).

I showed had although it was not totally perfect, I think it passed the distance test.

I mentioned that I was working on making a tweed jacket out of this new cloth, and would show you the results alongside my own jacket made from the screen-used fabric.

Well, true to my word here are some shots to show the two side-by-side.

The first thing I should mention is my jacket (on the left) is a chest 42, and the new jacket (on the right) is only a chest 35! So this is a like-for-like on the fabric only - the cut of the jackets will look a little different compared to each other.

The next Donegal I have to make will be a chest 44 - so from one end of the scale to the other.

Overall I think the reweave compares well, with the visual read of the fabric very close to the original.

The new fabric has a warmer shade to it, compared to the screen-used cloth, which is greener.

Getting closer, its only now the red flecks start to show up, but they are not to frequent for it to notice too dominantly.

You can’t get around that they are there, but frankly compared to a lot of other cloths I have sourced, this is by far the least intrusive available.

It’s nice to be making this jacket again, as I haven’t made one for several years.
The cut is a classic lounge jacket shape, and the cloth is a joy to work with.

I hope to be making more in the future.